1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to vehicles having electric propulsion motors such as golf carts, and more particularly to a battery and solar cell assembly for providing the electric energy.
2. Description of Related Art
Electrically propelled vehicles have been in use since early in this century and have ranged in size from miniature electric trains to large diesel electric locomotives. A substantial number of such vehicles, such as golf carts, have relied on storage batteries as the source of the electrical energy. The golf carts are typically used for eighteen holes of golf and the batteries are then recharged before the cart is used again. It is detrimental to permit the storage batteries to become fully discharged. It is also detrimental to overcharge a storage battery. The battery chargers used for golf carts or the like, which use power supplied by a utility, are typically designed to charge at a relatively high rate when they are first connected, whether or not the batteries to be charged require such a high rate of charge. Such a high rate of charge consequently may be damaging to the batteries, but even if not damaging is expensive in terms of cost of power.
It would consequently be desirable to avoid or minimize the need to use a utility powered battery charger to recharge the vehicle batteries.
The use of solar energy as a source of motive power would be a desirable solution; however, the supply of solar energy does not always match the demand. The use of batteries which are recharged by solar cells and which supplement the energy provided by solar cells when necessary, has been successful for some purposes. A successful arrangement of this type for providing motive power for a vehicle is not known, however.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a battery and solar cell assembly for providing the needed electrical energy for a propulsion motor, which routinely does not require charging by a utility battery charger.
It is also an object of this invention to provide such a battery and solar cell assembly with a display which will indicate the need, if any, for additional charging of the batteries.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a solar cell array which will provide a rapid charging of the batteries, while avoiding detrimental overcharging.